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15 December 2005
The My Humps saga continues. "...hearing this song for the first time was 2005's most sobering musical experience."
I haven't heard the "Humps," song, and I probably wouldn't like it if I did, but dismissing a song because it's dumb, catchy and nonsensical would've robbed you of some of the great musical pleasures of the rock era: "Wooly Bully," "Surfin Bird," "Get A Job," "Tutti Frutti," "Louie Louie," ...and the list goes on and on. And such songs have aged much better than the "serious" products of their respective eras, too.
The advantages of being absolutely isolated in a motel room in The Middle of Nowhere, Northern Minnesota: I haven't heard this song. I thought the Black Eyed Peas did some sort of country rap? I figured this humps thing was kinda like the milkshake song of a few years ago.
RE: Pitchfork.... I know this is going to take me down a notch in jonmc's eyes, but I read Pitchfork every day. I know they are a bunch of self-involved hipsters, but they have turned me on to some music that I like a lot.
Also, I have to agree with the author of the cited article that the first track on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is pretty unlistenable, although I love the rest of the album.
I know this is going to take me down a notch in jonmc's eyes
Never happen, darling. But I'd recommend you read print mags like Ugly Things, MoJo, Wax Poetics, No Depression, and Web Sites like Perfect Sound Forever to be turned on to some much better stuff.
I feel you matildaben. Pitchfork clued me in on a lot of good music. Though I usually had to guess what something would sound like based on the name dropping. I've stopped reading it though. There are about 8 billion blogs that do a better job of finding music and at the same time, present in a non self-involved hipster fashion. Plus they usually have mp3s so I can actually here what the music sounds like. In particular: Mystery and Misery, Largehearted Boy, Fat Planet, and cocaine blunts.
dismissing a song because it's dumb, catchy and nonsensical would've robbed you of some of the great musical pleasures of the rock era
But the songs you use as examples all had something else going for them-- they were dynamic, or melodic, or had a fine sense of rhythm, or they were performed brilliantly. My Humps isn't catchy in a good way at all-- not like a great popsong, where you just want to sing along. It's like the antithesis of all that.
Rehearsing my Choir wasn't particularly stellar, but it's hardly one of the worst of the year. And "You Look Good on the Dancefloor and the Band is Distracted and That's Why this Song is So Fucking Boring" isn't on the list?
I've got to take issue with their panning of Matisyahu. And Daft Punk's "Technologic." Othwise, I s'pose I'm lucky that I haven't heard of most of these.
My roommate has the whole love/hate thing going on with "Humps." Sort of the way I felt about "Toxic"--you hate it, but you turn it up when it comes on the radio.
MoJo does write about those old warhorses so well that it makes you wanna blow the dust off their records. And the other print mags I mentioned will lead you to some great stuff, too.
jokeefe: I'm not defending My Humps (god that's a weird sentence), just pointing out that all the songs I mentioned were dismissed as dumb, teenybopper trash, too.
I read Pitchfork every day as well (among other music sites). It's one among many, and better written than most, though I hate that they slated Low's album this year, not to mention CocoRosie.
I don't really care too much about the hipster posturing one way or the other.
Yeah, do you get, like, a jonmc signal or something that comes up whenever there's a p-fork mention here or on MeFi? The lights in the Joncave flash or something?
(And now that i hear they trashed the Cocorosie, maybe I can start reading 'em again...)
I'd like to point out that PFork has so jumped the shark that they can't even give me one reason for not liking Matisyahu. Who, for the record, I like a lot.
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